KERAY 


DAYS  WITH  THE 
GREAT  WRITER 


\     LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


OTPlBgTH  V^Jf?ANKLIW 

*  AVENUE 


^ 


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Painting  by   C.    E.    Brtck. 

"  Say  yes,  Becky,"  Sir  Pitt  continued,  "... 
I'd  make  you  a  settlement.  I'd  do  everything  regilar. 
Look  yere  !  "  And  the  old  man  fell  down  on  his  knees 
and  leered  at  her  .  .  .  Rebecca  started  back,  the 
picture  of  consternation  :...*'  Oh,  Sir  Pitt,"  she 
said,  "Oh,  Sir!  I— I'm  married  already!" 

Vanity  Fair, 


In  the  same  Series. 
Stevenson. 
Dickens. 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

T  was  about  half-past  nine  o'clock, 
on  a  mild  October  morning  in 
1858,  when  the  big,  broad- 
shouldered,  upright  figure  of 
William  Makepeace  Thackeray 
entered  the  breakfast  room  of 
36,  Onslow  Square,  and  was  received  with 
affectionate  greetings  by  his  two  young 
daughters.  His  large  kindly  face,  "full  of 
humour  and  human  sympathy,"  beamed  upon 
them  across  the  well-furnished  breakfast  table, 
as  he  made  good  play  with  knife  and  fork  ; 
for  Thackeray  was  never  one  to  disdain  the 
pleasures  of  eating  and  drinking.  And  indeed 
it  needed  more  than  "  butterfly-food"  to  sustain 
that  fine  frame  of  six-foot-two,  and  that  cease- 
less fertility  of  brain-output  which  almost  stag- 
gers one  to  contemplate.  The  great  man  was 
only  forty-six,  but  appeared  very  much  older, 
owing  to  the  silvery  whiteness  of  his  short- 
cropped  curly  hair,  and  the  spectacles  through 
which  his  blue-grey  eyes  sent  forth  so  keen  a 
gaze.  His  massive  head  and  face  were  almost 
anomalous  on  the  top  of  such  a  mighty  figure, 

5 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

owing  to  the  curious  air  of  childlike  simplicity 
which  distinguished  the  famous  satirist,  giving 
him,  as  Motley  wrote,  the  appearance  of  "a 
colossal  infant,  with  a  roundish  face,  and  a  little 
dab  of  a  nose." 

He  looked  about  him  in  frank  and  simple 
pleasure,  surveying  all  with  satisfaction :  now 
glancing  at  the  two  girls,  the  idols  of  his  heart, 
now  at  the  comfortable  appurtenances  of  that 
"  pleasant  bowery  sort  of  house,  with  green 
curtains  and  carpets,  looking  out  upon  the  elm- 
trees  "  (Lady  Ritchie),  which  was  perhaps  the 
most  desirable  of  all  the  many  dwellings  he  had 
occupied.  Finally,  having  finished  his  meal,  he 
lighted  a  cigar  and  took  up  a  comfortable  atti- 
tude and  a  morning  paper.  For  this  man,  who 
had  in  his  youth  struggled  so  strenuously  and 
unavailingly, — who,  ten  years  before  this,  was 
an  obscure  writer  for  reviews  and  magazines, 
barely  eking  out  a  difficult  hand-to-mouth  exist- 
ence,— had  now  arrived  at  the  zenith  of  a  hard- 
earned  fame.  And  he  was  recouping  himself 
with  a  full  hand  for  all  the  slings  and  arrows  of 
outrageous  fortune  which  had  been  showered 
upon  him  in  those  bygone  days.  He  made 
money,  so  to  speak,  lavishly  (although  he  bitterly 
complained  that  five   copies  of  each  Dickens' 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

book  were  sold  to  one  of  his),  and  he  spent  it 
lavishly— on  himself  and  other  people.  "No 
man,"  it  has  been  said,  "  was  ever  so  much  im- 
proved by  success,"  and  the  success  carried  with 
it  the  unusual  traits  of  a  large  heart,  an  open 
hand,  an  incalculable  capacity  for  charitable 
deeds.  But  he  liked  to  maintain  a  high  standard 
of  home  and  personal  comfort :  he  thoroughly 
enjoyed  the  possession  of  a  big  house,  a  good 
wine-cellar,  a  man-servant,  a  riding  horse,  a 
brougham,  —  all  that  tends  towards,  without 
actually  verging  into,  luxury.  And  "  he  pre- 
ferred to  work  double  shifts  to  the  end  of  his 
days"  to  keep  up  this  desirable  state  of  things. 

Presently,  with  a  sigh,  the  big  man  roused 
himself  and  went  into  his  study.  A  slight  ex- 
pression of  distaste  crossed  his  face  as  his  eye 
fell  upon  the  evidences  of  work  which  thronged 
the  desk,  and  the  vast  accumulation  of  letters 
piled  upon  it.  "I  write  at  the  rate  of  5,000 
letters  a  year,"  he  had  told  a  friend,  and  prob- 
ably this  estimate  did  not  include  the  letters  he 
personally  dictated — much  less  the  correspond- 
ence which  he  had  to  peruse.  For  the  writing 
and  reading  of  epistolary  MS.  is,  to  a  literary 
man,  not  only  an  inevitable  evil,  but  a  most  per- 
nicious waste  of  time.     And  Thackeray  was  not 

7 


A    DAY    WITH   THACKERAY 

an  enthusiastic  penman  :  he  avowed  himself 
naturally  indolent.  "  I  work  only  from  neces- 
sity," he  said,  "  I  never  take  up  the  pen  with- 
out an  effort."  This  effort  was  continuous ; 
"  for,  as  the  sheets  went  from  him  each  day,  he 
told  himself  with  regard  to  each  sheet,  that  it 
was  a  failure."  (Anthony  Trollope.)  "  The 
great  thing  is  to  make  no  sentence  without  a 
meaning  to  it," — that  was  his  principle  :  and  he 
would  revise  his  work  continuously,  from  first 
MS.  to  second  edition,  re-writing  whole  pages 
and  substituting  simple  words  for  longer  ones. 
"  There  were  times,"  it  has  been  said,  "  when 
he  almost  hated  the  chain  that  held  him  to  the 
desk." 

But  to-day  he  was  absolutely  debarred  from 
a  long  session  at  that  irksome  piece  of  furniture, 
by  the  effects  of  a  recent  severe  illness.  His 
amanuensis,  George  Hodder,  was  already  wait- 
ing to  play  the  scribe  at  his  dictation  :  a  pleasant 
task,  for,  as  Hodder  himself  declared,  those 
who  knew  Thackeray  best,  loved  him  best :  and 
the  society  of  that  "hearty  and  very  human" 
man,  with  his  charm  of  pleasant  courtesy  and 
placid  temper,  was  in  itself  a  perpetual  delight. 

The  novelist  paced  to  and  fro,  smoking 
whilst  he  dictated.     Sometimes  he  found  the 

8 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

noises  of  the  street  too  harassing,  and  adjourned 
from  his  study  to  his  bedroom  :  sometimes  he 
sat  down  a  moment,  or  even  lay  down  a  little 
while.  To  make  a  beginning  of  work,  that 
was  his  great  difficulty  :  once  he  fairly  got  into 
his  stride,  things  went  more  easily.  But  his 
style,  "  which  is  more  like  the  result  of  thinking 
aloud  than  the  style  of  any  other  writer,"  is  the 
correlative  of  his  peculiar  want  of  method  : 
which  showed  most  evidently  in  the  construction 
of  his  stories.  The  fact  is,  they  were  not  con- 
structed, in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word.  He 
would  create  a  few  principal  characters,  and 
then  leave  them  to  make  the  running,  with  no 
very  clear  idea  as  to  their  possible  course.  "I 
don't  control  my  characters,"  he  said,  "I  am  in 
their  hands,  and  they  take  me  where  they 
please  .  .  I  have  been  surprised  at  the  observa- 
tions made  by  some  of  my  characters.  It  seems 
as  if  an  occult  power  were  moving  the  pen. 
The  person  says  or  does  something,  and  I  ask, 
how  did  he  come  to  think  of  that  ?  " 

At  present,  however,  the  characters  needed 
a  little  management  and  careful  manipulation, — 
even  if  they  did  not  always  get  it.  For 
Thackeray  was  very  fully  occupied  with  the 
fortunes  of  the  house  of  Esmond- Warrington, 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

as  set  forth  in  The  Virginians,  If  the  notorious 
ill-success  of  a  sequel  were  dogging  the  author's 
steps,  almost  as  a  foregone  conclusion,  all 
throughout  this  book,  one  might  contend  that  it 
would  be  a  hard  task  for  any  sequel  to  parallel 
the  strength,  interest,  and  sustained  historical 
dignity  of  its  predecessor  Esmond.  "  Never 
could  I  have  believed,"  declared  Walter  Savage 
Landor,  "that  Thackeray,  great  as  his  abilities 
are,  could  have  written  so  noble  a  sl:ory  as 
Esmond"  And  never  could  any  man  have 
believed  that,  in  his  remorseless  regard  for  truth 
as  he  saw  it,  the  novelist  would  permit  the 
Baroness  de  Bernstein,  the  raddled  old  woman, 
"  tired  of  most  things  and  most  people,  .  .  . 
nodding  and  sleeping  over  the  Chaplain's 
stories,  ...  a  stout,  high-coloured  old  lady, 
with  a  very  dark  pair  of  eyes,"  to  be  identified 
as  the  wreck  of  that  magnificent  Beatrix,  who 
moved  in  sinister  splendour  through  the  stately 
pages  of  Esmond.  There  is,  perhaps,  no  such 
masterly  picture  of  any  woman,  in  any  tale,  as 
that  which  introduces  and  sums  up  this  glorious 
creature. 

"  In  the  hall  of  Walcote  House,  .  .  . 
is  a  staircase  that  leads  from  an  open  gallery, 
where  are  the  doors  of  the  sleeping  chambers  : 


1' minting  by  C.  E.  Brock. 

In  the  hall  of  Walcote  House  is  a  staircase  that 
leads  from  an  open  gallery*  where  are  the  doors  of  the 
sleeping  chambers :  and  from  one  of  these,  a  wax 
candle  in  her  hand,  and  illuminating  her,  came  Mistress 
Beatrix — the  light  falling  indeed  upon  the  scarlet 
ribbon  which  she  wore,  and  upon  the  most  brilliant 
white  neck  in  the  world  ...  So  she  came,  holding 
her  dress  with  one  fair  rounded  arm,  and  her  taper 
before  her,  tripping  down  the  stairs  to  greet  Esmond. 

Esmond. 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

and  from  one  of  these,  a  wax  candle  in  her 
hand,  and  illuminating  her,  came  Mistress 
Beatrix, — the  light  falling  indeed  upon  the 
scarlet  ribbon  which  she  wore,  and  upon  the 
most  brilliant  white  neck  in  the  world.  Esmond 
had  left  a  child,  and  found  a  woman,  grown 
beyond  her  common  height :  and  arrived  at  such 
a  dazzling  completeness  of  beauty,  that  his  eyes 
might  well  show  surprise  and  delight  at  behold- 
ing her.  In  hers,  there  was  a  brightness  so 
lustrous  and  melting,  that  I  have  seen  a  whole 
assembly  follow  her  as  if  by  an  attraction  irre- 
sistible. .  .  She  was  a  brown  beauty :  that  is, 
her  eyes,  hair,  and  eyebrows  and  eyelashes  were 
dark  :  her  hair  curling  with  rich  undulations, 
and  waving  over  her  shoulders  :  but  her  com- 
plexion was  as  dazzling  white  as  snow  in  sun- 
shine, except  her  cheeks,  which  were  a  bright 
red,  and  her  lips,  which  were  of  a  still  deeper 
crimson.  Her  mouth  and  chin,  they  said,  were 
too  large  and  full,  and  so  they  might  be  for  a 
goddess  in  marble,  but  not  for  a  woman  whose 
eyes  were  fire,  whose  look  was  love,  whose 
voice  was  the  sweetest  love  song,  whose  shape 
was  perfect  symmetry,  health,  decision,  activity, 
whose  foot,  as  it  planted  itself  in  the  ground,  was 
firm  but  flexible,  and  whose  motion,   whether 

13 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

rapid  or  slow,  was  always  perfedt  grace — agile 

as  a  nymph,  lofty  as  a  queen — now  melting,  now 

imperious,  now  sarcastic, — there  was  no  single 

movement  of  hers  but  was  beautiful  ...  So  she 

came,  holding  her  dress  with  one  fair,  rounded 

arm,  and  her  taper  before  her,  tripping  down 

the  stairs  to  greet  Esmond." 

(Esmond.) 

After  this,  to  be  confronted  with  Madam 
Bernstein  is  a  case  of  Vanitas  Vanitatum  with  a 
vengeance  :  and  Thackeray  himself  felt  this,  as 
he  more  or  less  reluctantly  dictated  sheet  after 
sheet  of  The  Virginians. 

Finally,  in  a  sudden  fit  of  impatience, 
"That's  enough,  George,"  he  cried,  "I  can 
write  anywhere  better  than  at  home.  I  cannot 
work  comfortably  here  in  my  own  room.  There 
is  an  excitement  in  public  places  that  sets  my 
brain  working  :  and  here  it  goes  like  a  creaking 
wheel.  I  must  work  at  high  pressure,  or  not  at 
all.  Let  us  run  through  the  letters,  and  then — 
well,  then  I  think  I  must  take  the  children  for 
a  run." 

The  "children,"  the  "little  girls,"  as  they 
always  were  to  their  father,  were  now  young 
women.  They  were  doubly  dear  to  him, — for 
their  own  sake,  and  for  that  of  their  mother,  to 

14 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

whose  loss  he  could  never  become  reconciled, 
for  it  was  a  loss  by  far  worse  than  death.  After 
only  four  years  of  happy  married  life,  Mrs. 
Thackeray's  intellect  had  become  irrevocably 
clouded,  and  for  forty  years  she  remained  shut 
away  in  seclusion.  No  gleam  of  hope  ever 
penetrated,  for  her  husband,  the  sadness  of  this 
lame  and  impotent  conclusion  to  all  the  happy 
visions  which  had  once  been  his.  Only  an  infi- 
nite sadness,  a  sense  of  futility  in  things  terres- 
trial, grew  more  manifest  in  his  writings  as  the 
years  went  on,  and  the  charming  young  Irish 
wife  became  a  poignant  memory. 

M  Ah !  me  !  how  quick  the  days  are  flitting ! 

I  mind  me  of  a  time  that's  gone, 
When  here  I'd  sit,  as  now  I'm  sitting 

In  this  same  place — but  not  alone. 
A  fair  young  form  was  nestled  near  me, 

A  dear,  dear  face  looked  fondly  up, 
And  sweetly  spoke,  and  smiled  to  cheer  me — 
There's  no  one  now  to  share  my  cup." 

(Ballad  of  Bouillabaisse.) 
But,  for  her  sake,  he  had  a  peculiar  leaning 
towards  the  Irish :  "  I  hear,"  a  man  said  to 
him,  "  you  have  written  a  book  upon  Ireland, 
and  are  always  making  fun  of  the  Irish.  You 
don't  like  us."    Thackeray  replied,    his  head 

is 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

turned  away,  and  his  eyes  filling  with  tears, 
"God  help  me  !  all  that  I  have  loved  best  in  the 
world  is  Irish."  And  you  may  notice  that,  in 
dealing  with  an  Irishman,  he  always  treats  him 
tenderly,  "lets  him  down  easy,"  makes  every 
excuse  for  his  shortcomings.  From  Captain 
Shandon  in  Pendennis,  "one  of  the  wittiest,  the 
most  amiable  .  .  and  the  most  incorrigible  of 
Irishmen.  Nobody  could  help  liking  Charley 
Shandon  who  saw  him  once,  and  those  whom 
he  ruinod  could  hardly  be  angry  with  him," 
to  Jack  Finucane  of  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette, — 
and  the  dare-devil  scoundrel  Barry  Lyndon, — 
last,  not  least,  to  Captain  Costigan,  in  whose 
"whiskied  blood  there  was  not  a  bad  drop, 
nor  in  his  muddled  brains  a  bitter  feeling 
against  any  mortal  soul,"  —  the  characteristic 
Hibernian  traits  are  ruthlessly  yet  lovingly 
sketched.  And  for  Captain  Costigan,  his 
author  had  evidently  a  special  kindness  :  he 
crops  up  continually  through  various  novels, 
always  further  downhill  and  down-at-heel, 
always  with  a  relic  of  his  old  jauntiness, — 
a  suggestion  of  tenderness,  when  "  rakish 
and  shabby  .  .  .  brave  and  maudlin,  humor- 
ous and  an  idiot,  always  goodnatured  and 
sometimes    almost     trustworthy,"    he    enter- 

16 


Painting  by   C.   E.   Brock. 

Sometimes  the  Captain  was  present  at  their 
meetings,  but  having  a  perfect  confidence  in  his 
daughter,  he  was  more  often  inclined  to  leave  the 
young  couple  to  themselves,  and  cocked  his  hat  over 
his  eye,  and  strutted  off  on  some  excuse  when  Pen 
entered  ....  The  Captain's  drawing-room  was 
a  low-wainscoted  room  with  a  large  window  looking 
into  the  Dean's  garden.  There  Pen  sate  and  talked — 
talked  to  Emily,  looking  beautiful  as  she  sate  at  her 
work. 

Pendennis. 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

tained,  for  his  daughter's  sake,  the  infatuated 
Master  Arthur  Pendennis. 

"Sometimes  the  Captain  was  present  at 
their  meetings  ;  but,  having  a  perfect  confidence 
in  his  daughter,  he  was  more  often  inclined  to 
leave  the  young  couple  to  themselves,  and 
cocked  his  hat  over  his  eye,  and  strutted  off  on 
some  excuse  when  Pen  entered.  How  delight- 
ful those  interviews  were.  The  Captain's 
drawing  room  was  a  low  wainscoted  room  with 
a  large  window  looking  into  the  Dean's  garden. 
There  Pen  sate  and  talked — talked  to  Emily, 
looking  beautiful  as  she  sate  at  her  work,  looking 
beautiful  and  calm,  aad  the  sunshine  came 
streaming  in  at  the  great  window,  and  lighted 

up  her  superb  face  and  form." 

{Pendennis.) 

But  the  most  admirable  child  of  Erin  that 
ever  Thackeray  loved  to  linger  over,  was  Mrs. 
O'Dowd  in  Vanity  Fair:  whose  behaviour  on 
the  eve  of  Waterloo  was  so  unique.  He  loved 
to  detail  every  accent,  every  idiom,  of  the 
inimitable  Peggy,  nee  Maloney. 

"  *  I'd  like  ye  to  wake  me  about  half  an  hour 
before  the  assembly  beats,'  the  Major  said  to 
his  lady.  *  Call  me  at  half-past  one,  Peggy, 
dear,  and  see  me  things  is  ready.     Maybe  I'll 

19 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

not  come  back  to  breakfast,  Mrs.  O'D.'  With 
which  words,  which  signified  his  opinion  that 
the  regiment  would  march  the  next  morning, 
the  Major  ceased  talking,  and  fell  asleep. 

"Mrs.  O'Dowd,  the  good  housewife,  arrayed 
in  curl-papers  and  a  camisole,  felt  that  her  duty- 
was  to  act,  and  not  to  sleep,  at  this  juncture. 
*Time  enough  for  that,'  she  said,  *  when 
Mick's  gone.'  So  she  packed  his  travelling 
valise  ready  for  the  march,  brushed  his  cloak, 
his  cap,  and  other  warlike  habiliments,  set  them 
out  in  order  for  him,  and  stowed  away  in  the 
cloak  pockets  a  light  package  of  portable  re- 
freshments, and  a  wicker-covered  flask  or 
pocket-pistol  containing  near  a  pint  of  a  re- 
markably sound  Cognac  brandy,  of  which  she 
and  the  Major  approved  very  much  ;  and  as 
soon  as  the  hands  of  the  '  repay ther '  pointed 
to  half-past  one,  and  its  interior  arrangements 
(it  had  a  tone  quite  equal  to  a  Cathaydral,  its 
fair  owner  considered)  knelled  forth  that  fatal 
hour,  Mrs.  O'Dowd  woke  up  her  Major,  and 
has  as  comfortable  a  cup  of  coffee  prepared  for 
him  as  any  made  that  morning  in  Brussels  .  .  . 
The  consequence  was,  that  the  Major  appeared 
on  parade  quite  trim,  fresh  and  alert,  his  well- 
shaved  rosy  countenance,  as  he  sat  on  horse- 

20 


A   DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

back,  giving  cheerfulness  and  confidence  to  the 
whole  corps.  All  the  officers  saluted  her  when 
the  regiment  marched  by  the  balcony  on  which 
this  brave  woman  stood,  and  waved  them  a 
cheer  as  they  passed  :  and  I  daresay  it  was  not 
from  want  of  courage,  but  from  a  sense  of 
female  delicacy  and  propriety,  that  she  refrained 
from  leading  the  gallant  — th   personally  into 


action." 


(Vanity  Fair,) 


Thackeray's  next  move,  this  morning,  was 
to  "take  the  little  girls  for  a  run,"  as  he  had 
phrased  it :  and  they  unanimously  decided  in 
favour  of  Kensington  Gardens,  a  district  which 
never  palls  upon  its  devotees.  The  trees  were 
already  assuming  their  autumnal  tints,  the 
"roses  d'Octobre"  were  few  and  far  between: 
but  the  Gardens  and  the  Broad  Walk  were 
fairly  alive  with  children,  and  the  Round  Pond 
was  all  a-flicker  with  sails.  The  great  author's 
countenance  became  transfused  with  the 
warmest  pleasure.  He  had  an  intense  and  ex- 
traordinary love  for  children.  He  rejoiced  in 
playing  with  them,  in  taking  them  to  the  panto- 
mime, in  drawing  funny  pictures  to  make  them 
laugh. 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

11  Caricatures  I  scribbled  have,  and  rhymes, 

And  dinner  cards,  and  picture-pantomimes, 

And  many  little  children's  books  at  times." 

Fields,  the  American  publisher,  had  once 

been  invited  to  accompany   him   to   St.  Paul's, 

'*  and  hear  the  Charity  Children  sing  .  .  .  the 

greatest  sight  in  London."  .  .  .  "And  I  saw," 

said  Fields  subsequently,    "the  head  cynic  of 

literature,    the    hater    of   humanity "   (as   the 

Times  had  termed  him),**  hiding  his  bowed  head 

wet  with  tears,  while  his  whole  frame  shook 

with  emotion." 

But  above  all  he  was  passionately  attached 
to  boys.  **I  always,"  said  he,  "give  boys 
beef-steaks  and  apricot  omelettes."  He  was 
consumed  by  a  perpetual  desire  to  provide 
them  with  little  treats,  to  act  the  Fairy  God- 
father to  boys  all  and  sundry :  and  the  little 
ones  especially  found  their  way  into  his  genial 
heart.  Thackeray  always  speaks  of  little  boys 
with  a  singular  fatherly  tenderness,  as  though 
each  had  been  his  own, — as  though  he  had  held 
the  little  warm  sticky  hands  in  his,  and  had 
personally  known  and  sympathised  with  all 
the  transient  joys  and  sorrows  of  small-boy- 
hood. For  instances  of  this,  you  have  only  to 
remember  little  Georgy  in    Vanity  Fair, — and 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

little  Rawdon,  for  whom  the  big  Dragoon  his 
father  had  such  a  "great  secret  tenderness," 
his  one  redeeming  spot ;  and  little  Harry 
Esmond — and  little  Denny  Duval — and  the 
boys  of  Dr.  Birch1  s  School — they  are  beyond 
naming  or  numbering  :  and  all  of  them  drawn 
with  the  truth  and  skill  which  only  love  can 
give.  As  for  The  Newcomes,  it  is,  one  may 
say,  a  chronicle  of  little  boys — from  Tommy, 
afterwards  the  Colonel,  to  Clivey,  his  son, 
and  his  son  Boy,  in  later  chapters  —  down 
to  the  "little  laughing  red -cheeked  white- 
headed  gown-boy,"  who  talks  cricket  to  the 
Colonel  on  his  death-bed. 

When  Thackeray  and  his  daughters  at 
length  quitted  the  Gardens,  he  bade  them  fare- 
well and  turned  Westward ;  his  brougham  was 
waiting  in  the  High  Street  to  take  him  to 
the  Athenaeum  Club.  There,  at  a  quiet  table, 
he  would  proceed  to  cover  a  few  slips  of  paper, 
but  erratically  and  with  no  very  fixed  purpose 
of  work.  "  My  Pegasus  has  no  wings,"  he 
complained,  "he  is  blind  of  one  eye  certainly. 
He  is  restive,  stubborn,  slow :  crops  a  hedge 
when  he  ought  to  be  galloping,  or  gallops  when 
he  ought  to  be  quiet.  He  will  never  show  off 
when  I  want  him.  .  .  I  am  obliged  to  let  him 

23 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

take  his  time."  But  printers  cannot  be  kept 
waiting  :  publishers  are  insistent  people  :  and 
Thackeray's  happy-go-lucky,  hand-to-mouth 
manner  of  supplying  the  demand,  "  than  which," 
as  Motley  wrote,  "  I  can  conceive  nothing  more 
harassing  in  a  literary  way  " — was  probably  at 
once  the  cause  and  effect  of  his  somewhat  loose 
and  casual  constructive  methods. 

At  the  clubs,  however,  although  a  room 
was  sometimes  placed  entirely  at  his  disposal, 
he  was  liable  to  all  sorts  of  digressions  and  di- 
vergences from  his  work — easily  tempted  to  go 
for  a  walk,  or  to  join  an  interesting  conversation, 
or  to  stand  in  the  smoking-room  with  his  back 
to  the  fire  and  his  hands  in  his  trouser  pockets, 
enjoying  an  animated  causerie  with  his  friends. 
Unquestionably  he  picked  up  a  great  deal  of 
material  for  his  tales  through  current  club- 
gossip.  He  repudiated,  however,  the  charge  of 
drawing  his  characters  from  life  —  although 
many  parts  of  Pendennis  are  undeniably  auto- 
graphical  :  and  declared  that  Sir  Pitt  Crawley 
was  the  only  exact  portrait  in  Vanity  Fair — 
"  that  old,  stumpy,  short,  vulgar,  and  very  dirty 
man,"  as  Becky  Sharp  described  him,  "  in  old 
clothes,  and  shabby  old  gaiters,  who  smokes  a 
horrid  pipe,  and  cooks  his  own  horrid  supper  in 

24 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

a  saucepan."  The  Hampshire  vernacular  of 
Sir  Pitt,  that  "  philosopher  with  a  taste  for  low 
life,"  has  certainly  considerable  vraisemblance 
about  it :  and  who  that  ever  read  it  can  forget 
the  episode  of  his  proposal  to  Becky  ? 

"'I  want  you  back  at  Queen's  Crawley, 
Miss,'  the  Baronet  said,  fixing  his  eyes  upon 
her,  and  taking  off  his  black  gloves,  and  his  hat 
with  its  great  black  hat-band.  His  eyes  had 
such  a  strange  look,  and  fixed  upon  her  so  stead- 
fastly, that  Rebecca  Sharp  began  almost  to 
tremble  .  .  'Come  as  Lady  Crawley,  if  you 
like,'  the  Baronet  said,  grasping  his  crape  hat, 
*  There,  will  that  satisfy  you?  Come  back 
and  be  my  wife.  You're  vit  vor't.  Birth  be 
hanged.  You're  as  good  a  lady  as  ever  I  see. 
You've  got  more  brains  in  your  little  finger  than 
any  baronet's  wife  in  the  county.  Will  you 
come?  Yes  or  no?'  'Oh,  Sir  Pitt!'  Rebecca 
said,  very  much  moved.  *  Say  yes,  Becky,'  Sir 
Pitt  continued.  *  I  am  an  old  man,  but  a  good 
man.  I'm  good  for  twenty  years.  I  will  make 
you  happy — you  shall  do  what  you  like,  spend 
what  you  like,  and  'av  it  all  your  own  way.  I'll 
make  you  a  zettlement.  I'll  do  everything 
reg'lar.  Look  yere ! ' — and  the  old  man  fell  down 
on  his  knees,  and  leered  at  her  like  a  satyr." 

25 


A    DAY   WITH    THACKERAY 

"  Rebecca  started  back,  the  picture  of  con- 
sternation. In  the  course  of  this  history  we 
have  never  seen  her  lose  her  presence  of  mind  ; 
but  she  did  now,  and  wept  some  of  the  most 
genuine  tears  that  could  fall  from  her  eyes. 
'Oh,   Sir  Pitt,'  she  said,   'Oh,  Sir,  I— I— I— 

I'm  married  already.'" 

(Vanity  Fair.) 

But  Vanity  Fair,  "assured  of  immortality 
as  ninety-nine  hundredths  of  modern  novels  are 
sure  of  annihilation,"  requires  no  factitious  aid 
of  avowed  studies-from-the-life  to  enhance  its 
marvellous  veracities.  It  is  the  epitome  of 
Thackeray's  theory  of  work, — of  that  absolute 
devotion  to  truth  which  was  his  whole  plan  of 
action.  "All  is  true  in  Thackeray,"  said  Char- 
lotte Bronte  (who  by  no  means  worshipped 
blindly) :  "If  Truth  were  again  a  goddess, 
Thackeray  should  be  her  high  priest."  And  as 
he  put  it  himself : 

"  I  cannot  help  telling  the  truth  as  I  find  it, 
and  describing  what  I  see.  To  describe  it  other- 
wise than  it  seems,  seems  to  me,  would  be  false- 
hood in  that  calling  in  which  it  has  pleased 
heaven  to  place  me  :  treason  to  that  conscience 
which  says  that  men  are  weak  :  that  truth  must 

be  told  :  that  faults  must  be  owned  :  that  pardon 

26 


A   DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

must  be  paid  for  :  and  that  Love  reigns  supreme 

over  all." 

{Charity  and  Humour,) 

It  is  this  inherent  truth  to  types  which  is 
the  vital  essence  of  his  work.  He  shows  no 
man,  no  woman,  wholly  bad  or  wholly  good, 
but  endeavours  to  demonstrate  "that  love  and 
truth  are  the  greatest  of  heaven's  command- 
ments and  blessings  to  us  :  that  the  best  of 
us,  the  many  especially  who  pride  themselves 
on  their  virtue,  are  wretchedly  weak,  vain  and 
selfish  :  and  to  preach  such  a  charity  at  least 
as  a  common  sense  of  our  shame  and  unworthi- 
ness  might  inspire  ..." 

In  short,  he  never  lost  sight  of  the  fact  that 
even  in  the  worst,  the  most  hardened,  the  most 
degraded, — "  O  joy,  that  in  our  embers  is  some- 
thing that  doth  live  ! " — burns  some  smoulder  of 
celestial  fire. 

Lunch  at  the  Athenaeum  over,  the  novelist 
would  stroll  on  to  the  Garrick  and  perhaps 
indite  a  few  more  pages  there  :  perhaps  dip  into 
one  or  two  current  magazines  or  new  books. 
He  preferred  such  stories  as  took  a  kindly,  opti- 
mistic view  of  life  ;  for  "Love,"  he  had  written, 
"is  a  higher  intellectual  exercise  than  Hatred," 

and  he   found   "unhappy  endings"  absolutely 

27 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

unbearable.  His  own  personal  predilections 
lay  largely  with  the  great  eighteenth-century 
romancists  —  Fielding,  Smollett,  Steele,  and 
Goldsmith ;  but  his  favourite  authors  were  Scott 
and  Dumas.  He  was  kindled  to  enthusiasm  by 
the  sight  of  books  en  masse,  as  in  the  British 
Museum,  where  he  had  formerly  worked  so 
often : 

M  That  catholic  dome  in  Bloomsbury,  what 

truth,  what  beauty,  what  happiness  for  all,  what 

generous   kindness   for   you   and  me  are   here 

spread  out !     It  seems  to  me  one  cannot  sit  down 

in  that  place  without  a  heart  full  of  grateful 

reverence.     I  own  to  have  said  my  grace  at  the 

table,  and  to  have  thanked  Heaven  for  this  my 

English  birthright,   freely   to    partake    of   the 

bountiful   books,    and   speak    the   truth  I  find 

there." 

(Nil  nisi  BonumJ) 

For  Thackeray  took  his  work  very  seri- 
ously, though  his  methods  of  doing  it  were  so 
haphazard. 

"  The  humorous  writer,"  he  remarked, 
"professes  to  awaken  and  direct  your  love, 
your  pity,  your  kindness,  your  sense  of  untruth, 
pretension,  imposture  ;  your  tenderness  for  the 

weak,  the  poor,  the  oppressed,  the  unhappy  .  . 

28 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

He  takes  upon  himself  to   be    the    week-day 

preacher,  so  to  speak." 

{English  Humorists,} 

And  he  held  his  profession  as  a  stewardship. 
He  had  prayed  that  he  "might  never  write  a 
word  inconsistent  with  the  love  of  God  or  with 
his  love  of  man  ; "  and  again  : 

"To  do  your  work  honestly,  to  amuse  and 
instruct  your  reader  of  to-day,  to  die  when  your 
time  comes,  and  go  hence  with  as  clean  a  breast 
as  may — may  all  these  be  yours  and  ours  by 
God's  will ! " 

(The  Chances  of  the  Literary  Profession,") 

"  With  regard  to  religion,"  he  wrote  on 
another  occasion,  "I  think,  please  God,  my 
books  are  written  by  a  God-loving  man,  and 
the  morality,  the  vanity  of  success,  etc., — of  all 
but  love  and  goodness" — is  not  that  the  teaching 
Domini  nostri  ? 

That  The  Newcomes  was  assailed  by  the 
Times  on  the  grounds  of  morality  and  religion, 
seems  now  an  inconceivable  thing.  For  assur- 
edly no  more  lofty-minded  and  lovable  character 
than  the  Colonel  figures  in  the  whole  vast 
realm  of  English  romance.  Of  the  many  old 
men  with  whose  "counterfeit  presentments" 

Thackeray  was  so  signally  successful,  Colonel 

29 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

Newcome  remains  for  all  time  the  model  of  an 
intrinsic  gentleman,  just  as  Lord  Steyne  is  the 
eternally  irredeemable  blackguard.  He  is  the 
very  incarnation  of  the  novelist's  own  lines  : — 

"  Gome  wealth  or  want,  come  good  or  ill, 

Let  young  and  old  accept  their  part, 
And  bow  before  the  Awful  Will, 

And  bear  it  with  an  honest  heart. 
Who  misses,  or  who  wins  the  prize  ? 

Go,  lose  or  conquer  as  you  can  ; 
But  if  you  fail,  or  if  you  rise, 

Be  each,  pray  God,  a  gentleman." 

And  from  the  time  when,  with  Pendennis, 
we  discover  him  patiently  fallen  upon  adversity: 

"Yonder  sit  some  two-score  old  gentlemen 
pensioners  of  the  hospital,  listening  to  the 
prayers  and  the  psalms.  You  hear  them  cough- 
ing feebly  in  the  twilight — the  old  revered 
blackgowns,  and  amongst  them  sat  Thomas 
Newcome.  His  dear  old  head  was  bent  down 
over  his  prayer-book.  He  wore  the  black  gown 
of  the  pensioners  of  the  hospital  of  Grey  Friars. 
His  Order  of  the  Bath  was  on  his  breast.  He 
stood  there  amongst  the  poor  brethren,  uttering 
the  responses  to  the  psalms.  The  steps  of  this 
good    man    had    been    ordered    by    Heaven's 

30 


Painting  by   C.   E.   Brock. 

Old  and  weazened  as  that  piano  is,  feeble  and 

cracked  her  voice,   it  is  wonderful  what  a  pleasant 

concert  she  can  give  in   that  parlour  of  a  Saturday 

evening,   to  a  lad  who  listens  with  all  his  soul — with 

tears  sometimes  in  his  great  eyes,  with  crowding  fancies 

filling  his  brain  and  throbbing  at  his  heart,  as  the  artist 

plies  her  humble  instrument. 

The  Newcomes. 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

decree — to  this  Almshouse !  Here  it  was  or- 
dained  that   a  life  all   love   and  kindness   and 

honour  should  end." 

(The  Newcotnes.) 

to  that  last  great  scene  in  which  Thackeray's 
voice,  as  he  read  it  aloud  to  Lowell  from  his 
MS.,  broke  on  a  sob  and  the  tears  ran  down  his 
face — Colonel  Newcome  is  absolute  master  of 
our  sympathy  and  our  emotions.  In  all  the 
language,  there  is  no  such  death-scene  for  utter 
and  most  touching  simplicity. 

"His  mind  was  gone  at  intervals,  but  would 
rally  feebly,  and  with  his  consciousness  returned 
his  love,  his  simplicity,  his  sweetness.  He 
would  talk  French  with  Madame  de  Florae,  at 
which  time  his  memory  appeared  to  awaken 
with  surprising  vividness ;  his  cheek  flushed 
and  he  was  a  youth  again,  a  youth  all  hope  and 
love — a  stricken  old  man,  with  a  beard  as  white 
as  snow  covering  his  careworn  face.  At  such 
times  he  called  her  by  her  Christian  name  of 
Leonore.  He  addressed  courtly  old  words  of 
regard  and  kindness  to  this  aged  lady.  Anon, 
he  wandered  in  his  thoughts,  and  spoke  to  her 
as  if  they  were  still  young  ...  At  the  usual 
evening  hour  the  chapel  bell  began  to  toll,  and 
Thomas    Newcome's    hands    outside    the    bed 

33 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

feebly  beat  time.     And  just  as  the   last    bell 

struck,  a  peculiar  sweet  smile  shone  over  his 

face,    and    he  lifted   up   his  hand  a  little,  and 

quickly  said  'Adsum' — and  fell  back,     It  was 

the  word  we  used  at  school  when  names  were 

called,  and  lo !  he,  whose  heart  was  that  of  a 

little  child,  had  answered  to  his  name,  and  stood 

in  the  presence  of  the  Master." 

(The  Newcomes,) 

As  many  interruptions  would  occur  at  the 
Garrick  as  at  the  Athenaeum.  Some  friend 
would  bring  a  tale  of  distress  to  pour  into  the 
sympathetic  ear  of  Thackeray  ;  for  to  be  in 
trouble  was  a  sure  passport  to  his  heart.  "  His 
charity  was  only  bounded  by  his  means."  There 
might  be  some  struggling  artist  to  be  helped ; 
some  ailing  man  of  letters  to  be  tided  over  hard 
times.  The  great  novelist  did  not  hold  himself 
aloof  in  Olympian  disdain  ;  on  the  contrary  : 
'*  Open-handed  and  kind-hearted,  he  had  not  an 
overweening  opinion  of  his  literary  consequence, 
and  he  was  generous  as  regards  the  people 
whom  the  world  chose  to  call  his  rivals." 
(Locker  Lampson.) 

And  he  had  a  particular  kindness  towards 
the  threadbare  denizens  of  Bohemia,  "a  land 
over  which  hangs  an  endless  fog,  occasioned  by 

34 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

much  tobacco  .  .  a  land  where  men  call  each 
other  by  their  Christian  names,  where  most  are 
old,  where  almost  all  are  young  .  .  I  have  lost 
my  way  to  Bohemia  now,  but  it  is  certain  that 
Prague  is  the  most  delightful  city  in  the  world." 
And  the  glamour  of  the  Quartier  Latin  had 
never  wholly  faded.  "I  like  what  are  called 
Bohemians  and  fellows  of  that  sort,"  he  averred, 
"I  have  seen  all  sorts  of  society  —  dukes, 
duchesses,  lords  and  ladies,  authors,  actors  and 
painters ;  and,  taken  altogether,  I  think  I  like 
painters  the  best." 

An  artist,  in  literature,  to  his  finger-tips, 
he  still  hankered  after  the  tools  of  a  former 
trade,  and  was  always  exceedingly  desirous  to 
portray  his  dramatis  personce  with  his  pencil  as 
well  as  with  his  pen.  For,  if  the  truth  be  told, 
he  infinitely  preferred  the  former  implement, 
and  was  always  only  too  ready  to  forsake  the 
desk  for  the  drawing-board.  His  early  attempts 
as  an  artist  had  been — frankly — failures  ;  and  it 
is  small  wonder  that  when,  as  a  young  man  of 
twenty-five,  he  went  with  a  few  drawings  to 
Dickens  in  the  hope  of  being  employed  to 
illustrate  Pickwick,  he  was  met  with  a  point- 
blank  refusal.  But  he  had  acquired  an  uncon- 
ventional knowledge  of  art,    and   an   intimate 

35 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

acquaintance  with  the  inside  of  studios,  which 
stood  him  in  good  stead  all  through  life.  And 
if  the  illustrations  to  his  own  books,  which  he 
produced  with  such  facile  profusion,  were  not 
very  great  from  a  technical  standpoint ;  still,  to 
quote  Charlotte  Bronte  :  "Thackeray's  rude, 
careless  sketches  were  preferable  to  thousands 
of  carefully  finished  paintings,  in  their  quaint 
humour  and  charm."  With  the  increasing 
influx  of  work  which  thronged  upon  him,  how- 
ever, he  became  at  length  unable  to  undertake 
illustration ;  and  had  formally,  in  The  Newcomes, 
abandoned  the  attempt.  "I  have  turned  away 
one  artist,"  he  wrote  of  himself,  "  the  poor 
creature  was  utterly  incapable  to  depict  the 
sublime,  peaceful  and  pathetic  personages  and 
events  with  which  this  history  will  most  as- 
suredly abound,  and  I  doubt  whether  the 
designer  engaged  in  his  place  can  make  such  a 
portrait  of  Miss  Ethel  Newcome  as  will  satisfy 
her  friends  and  her  own  sense  of  justice." 

Yet  one  wonders  if  the  magical  power  of 
words  to  create  and  re-create  scenes  and  even 
sounds,  were  ever  better  exemplified  than  in 
certain  passages  of  The  Newcomes :  that,  for 
instance,  where  Thackeray's  intense  enjoyment 

of  good  music  found  expression  in  the  vista  of 

36 


Painting  by   C.   E.    Brock. 

His  dear  old  head  was  bent  down  over  his  prayer- 
book.  He  wore  the  black  gown  of  the  pensioners  of 
the  Hospital  of  Grey  Friars.  His  Order  of  the  Bath 
was  on  his  breast.  He  stood  there  amongst  the  poor 
brethren,  uttering  the  responses  to  the  psalms.  The 
steps  of  this  good  man  had  been  ordered  hither  by 
Heaven's  decree— to  this  Almshouse ! 

The  Newcomes. 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

dreams  down  which  the  boy-artist,  "  J.  J.,"  is 
beckoned,  while  the  little  old  daily  governess, 
Miss  Gann,  plays  to  him  on  her  cracked 
piano : 

"  Old  and  weazened  as  that  piano  is,  feeble 
and  cracked  her  voice,  it  is  wonderful  what  a 
pleasant  concert  she  can  give  in  that  parlour  of 
a  Saturday  evening,  to  a  lad  who  listens  with 
all  his  soul — with  tears  sometimes  in  his  great 
eyes — with  crowding  fancies  filling  his  brain  and 
throbbing  at  his  heart,  as  the  artist  plies  her 
humble  instrument.  She  plays  the  music  of 
Handel  and  Haydn,  and  the  little  chamber 
swells  to  a  Cathedral,  and  he  who  listens, 
beholds  altars  lighted,  priests  ministering,  fair 
children  swinging  censers,  great  oriel  windows 
gleaming  in  sunset,  and  seen  through  arched 
columns  and  avenues  of  twilight  marble.  The 
young  fellow  who  hears  her  has  been  often  and 
often  to  the  Opera  and  Theatres.  As  she  plays 
Don  Juan,  Zerlina  comes  tripping  over  the 
meadows,  and  Masetto  after  her,  with  a  crowd 
of  peasant  maidens,  and  they  sing  the  sweetest 
of  all  music,  and  the  heart  beats  with  happiness, 
and  kindness,  and  pleasure.  Piano,  pianissimo  ! 
the  city  is  hushed.  The  towers  of  the  great 
Cathedral  rise  in  the  distance,  its  spires  lighted 

39 


A    DAY    WITH  THACKERAY 

by  the  rising  moon.  The  statues  in  the  moon- 
lit-place cast  long  shadows  athwart  the  pave- 
ment ;  but  the  fountain  in  the  midst  is  dressed 
out  like  Cinderella  for  the  night,  and  sings  and 
wears  a  crest  of  diamonds.  .  .  .  And  see,  on 
his  cream-coloured  charger,  Masaniello  prances 
in,  and  Fra  Diavolo  leads  down  the  balcony, 
carbine  in  hand  ;  and  Sir  Huon  of  Bordeaux 
sails  up  to  the  quay  with  the  Sultan's  daughter 
of  Babylon.  All  these  delights  and  sights,  and 
joys  and  glories,  these  tributes  of  sympathy, 
movements  of  unknown  longing,  and  visions  of 
beauty,  a  young  sickly  lad  of  eighteen  enjoys  in 
a  little  dark  room,  where  there  is  a  bed  disguised 
in  the  shape  of  a  wardrobe,  and  a  little  old 
woman  is  playing  under  a  gas  lamp  on  the 
jingling  keys  of  an  old  piano." 

(The  Newcomes.') 

The  afternoon  soon  slipped  away,  in  the 
manner  above  recorded — club-talk,  desultory 
writing,  short  walks  with  or  visits  to  some 
dear  and  intimate  friend.  There  were,  as 
may  be  imagined,  many  who  were  lifelong 
associates,  able  to  appreciate  "the  affectionate 
nature,  the  cheerful  companionship,  the  large 

heart  and  the  open  hand,  the  simple  courteous- 

40 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

ness,  the  enduring  frankness  of  a  brave,  true, 
honest  gentleman."    {Punch). 

But  Thackeray,  on  being  asked  by  one 
of  his  daughters  which  of  all  his  friends  was 
best  beloved,  replied,  "Why,  dear  old  Fitz, 
of  course,  and  Brookfield."  Fitz — Edward 
Fitzgerald,  of  "Omar  Khayyam"  renown — 
fully  reciprocated  this  affection,  being  a  de- 
voted admirer  of  the  "gray,  grand,  good- 
humoured  "  giant.  As  for  the  Rev.  Charles 
Brookfield  and  Mrs.  Brookfield,  they  were 
almost  like  brother  and  sister  to  him.  "They 
took  me  in,  they  pitied  me,  they  gave  me 
kindly  words  of  cheer."  And  to  mention 
his  other  most  notable  friends  would  be  to 
name  the  most  famous  men  of  the  period — 
Alfred  Tennyson,  Richard  Monckton  Milnes, 
Frederick  Locker  Lampson,  Tom  Taylor, 
Carlyle,  Macaulay,  Charles  Lever,  Hallam, 
Kinglake,  Millais  —  the  list  is  practically 
endless. 

With  the  arrival  of  evening,  the  novelist 
went  home  to  dress  for  dining-out,  which, 
it  must  be  owned,  was  probably  of  all  others 
his  favourite  occupation.  His  healthy  human 
appetite  for  food,  from  beans-and-bacon  to 
turtle    and  champagne,  was  paralleled  by  an 

41 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

almost  childish  pleasure  in  being  lionised.  He 
affected  to  despise  the  adoration  of  himself 
and  his  work ;  but  it  is  certain  that  society, 
popularity,  and  applause,  were  a  stimulant  to 
the  novelist — a  stimulant  increasingly  necessary 
to  him.  Not  only  from  the  craftsman's 
point  of  view;  for,  as  he  said,  "A  social 
painter  must  be  of  the  world  he  depicts, 
and  native  to  the  manners  he  portrays.  .  . 
If  I  don't  go  out  into  society,  I  can't  write." 
If  merely  as  the  reaction  from  his  long 
obscurity  and  makeshift  existence,  he  en- 
joyed himself  in  what  a  late  lamented  English 
composer  used  to  term,  with  bated  breath, 
"The  'Ouses  of  the  Great."  The  coruscating 
conversation,  the  scintillating  lights,  the 
women  and  high-bred  men,  the  flavour  of 
ease  and  opulence,  and  the  pride  of  the  eye 
— all  these  things  created  an  atmosphere  in 
which  he  spread  and  flourished  exceedingly. 
And  there  was  now  hardly  any  aristocratic 
dinner  party  complete  without  him,  or  any 
society  drawing-room  where  he  was  not  a 
persona  grata. 

Thackeray  was   a  notoriously  bad   public 
speaker.     He  could  go  on  with  eloquent  ease 

for  about  three    minutes,   and    would    then — 

42 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

suddenly,  unexpectedly,  irretrievably — break 
down,  with  so  complete  a  collapse  that  he 
made  no  attempt  to  recapture  his  scattered 
periods,  but  would  sit  down  with  a  face  of 
comic  despair.  The  lectures  at  Willis's  rooms, 
which  caused  such  gratification  to  his  hearers, 
threw  him  into  paroxysms  of  nervous  misery; 
though  no  one  would  have  guessed  this  from 
the  simple  grace  and  ease  of  his  delivery,  and 
from  the  quiet  humour  and  pathos  expressed 
by  his  soft,  sonorous  voice.  But  in  the  club, 
the  salon,  or  at  the  merry  dinner-party,  he  was 
completely  himself ;  and  his  bon  mots  flowed  in 
a  flashing  torrent.  "The  best  talker  I  ever 
listened  to,"  as  Dean  Hole  puts  it,  one  who 
"  said  so  many  good  things  that  they  trod  down 
and  suffocated  each  other."  He  was  careful 
not  to  sharpen  his  wits  upon  personalities.  He 
was  "  reticent  in  expressing  his  opinion  upon 
people  whom  he  did  not  like,  and  very  rarely 
said  ill-natured  things  about  anyone  "  ;  though, 
once  in  a  while,  under  the  pains  of  a  chronic 
complaint,  an  abrupt  unintentional  brusquerie 
invaded  his  kindly  manner.  And  if  Charlotte 
Bronte  professed  herself  worried  by  his 
"mocking  tongue,"  she  was  equally  distressed 
by    the    sight    of   his    hearty   consumption   of 

43 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

meals ;  until  at  last,  to  quote  his  own  words, 
"  As  I  took  my  fifth  potato,  she  leaned  across, 
with  clasped  hands  and  tearful  eyes,  and 
breathed  imploringly,  *  Oh,  Mr.  Thackeray ! 
Don't  V"  As  for  the  *  *  mocking  tongue ; "  though 
some  folks  quailed  under  his  satirical  severity, 
others  found  no  trace  of  it;  to  John  Hollings- 
head,  for  instance,  all  that  he  saw  of 
Thackeray — '*  impressed  me  with  his  gentle- 
ness and  charity.  Far  from  being  a  cynic,  he 
was   more  like   a  good-natured  schoolboy." 

Still,  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  "delighted," 
to  quote  Locker  Lampson,  "  in  luxuriously- 
furnished  and  well-lighted  rooms,  good  music, 
excellent  wines  and  cookery,  exhilarating  talk, 
gay  and  airy  gossip."  He  loved  the  sound,  and 
colour,  and  odour,  and  light  of  life  under  these 
circumstances ;  and  hence,  some  folk  who  had 
winced  under  his  castigating  lash  as  snobs, 
made  shift  to  raise  a  feeble  hoot  of  "Snob!" 
after  that  quiet,  simple  figure.  But  his  own 
definitions  remained  unchanged,  and  himself 
imperturbable. 

"A  society,"  said  he,  "that  sets  up  to  be 
polite,  and  ignores  Art  and  Letters,  I  hold  to 
be  a  snobbish  society.  You,  who  despise  your 
neighbour,  are  a  snob ;  you,  who  forget  your 

44 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

friends,  meanly  to  follow  after  those  of  higher 
degree,  are  a  snob ;  you,  who  are  ashamed  of 
your  poverty,  or  blush  for  your  calling,  are  a 
snob ;  as  you  who  boast  of  your  pedigree  and 
are  proud   of  your  wealth." 

(The  Snobs  of  England.) 

And  he  was  no  idolator  of  wealth,  as 
wealth ;  or  of  rank,  as  rank  ;  something  of 
more  permanent  worth  must  accompany 
these  distinctions,  to  give  them  value  in  his 
eyes. 

"People  there  are  living  and  flourishing 
jn  the  world  .  .  with  no  revenue  except 
for  prosperity,  and  no  eye  except  for 
success — faithless,  hopeless,  charityless.  Let 
us  have  at  them,  dear  friends,  with  might 
and  main,"  he  wrote  in  Vanity  Fair.  But 
he  emphasised  a  point  which  might  have 
otherwise  been  left  long   unnoticed : — 

"Try  to  frequent  the  company  of  your 
betters.  In  books  and  life,  that  is  the  most 
wholesome  society.  .  .  .  Learn  to  admire 
rightly ;  the  great  pleasure  of  life  is  that. 
Note  what  the  great  men  admired ;  they 
admired  great  things ;  narrow  spirits  admire 
basely  and  worship  meanly." 

(English  Humorists,) 

45 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

The  moon  was  high  above  Kensington 
Gardens  as  Thackeray  drove  home.  It  was 
already  past  midnight ;  the  sounds  of  Vanity 
Fair  were  growing  hushed,  and  its  lighted 
windows  becoming  darkened.  That  pensive 
and  wistful  habit  of  thought  which  underlay 
his  surface  vivacity,  gradually  gained  the 
upper  hand.     In  his  own  words: 

"A  man  with  a  reflective  turn  of  mind, 
walking  through  an  exhibition  of  this  sort, 
will  not  be  oppressed,  I  take  it,  by  his  own 
or  other  people's  hilarity.  .  .  .  When  you 
come  home,  you  sit  down,  in  a  sober,  con- 
templative, not  uncharitable  frame  of  mind." 

(Vanity  Fair.) 

And  it  was  in  this  "sober,  contemplative" 
spirit  that  he  entered  his  bedroom,  and, 
sinking  heavily  into  an  easy-chair,  glanced 
at  the  engraving  of  Diirer's  "St.  George 
and  the  Dragon,"  which  he  had  hung  near 
the  head  of  his  bed,  where  he  might  see  it 
every  evening  to  remind  him  that  "We  all 
have  our  dragons  to  fight."  He  remained 
lost  in  thought,  too  weary  to  undress ;  and 
the  burden  of  his  calling    pressed    upon  him 

with  new  weight  as  he  looked  back  over  a 

46 


A    DAY    WITH    THACKERAY 

day's  work  which  did  not  wholly  satisfy  his 
fastidious  requirements. 

"  What  an  awful  responsibility,"  he 
thought,  "hanging  over  a  writer  !  What  man, 
holding  such  a  place,  and  knowing  that  his 
words  go  forth  to  vast  congregations  of  man- 
kind— to  grown  folks,  to  their  children,  and 
perhaps  to  their  children's  children — but  must 
think  of  his  calling  with  a  solemn  and  a 
humble  heart.  May  love  and  truth  guide 
such  a  man  always !  It  is  our  awful  prayer, 
and  may  Heaven  further  its  fulfilment." 

(Mr.  Brown's  Letters.) 

And,  lastly,  a  more  intimate,  personal 
note  supervened.  A  tender  vision  crossed  his 
drowsy  eyes,  filling  them  with  the  ever-ready 
tears  ;  as  the  lines  of  his  own  favourite  ballad 
took  almost  tangible  shape  in  the  still 
shadows : — 

"  When    the     candles     burn     low,     and     the 
company's    gone, 

In  the  silence  of  night  as  I  sit  here   alone — 

I  sit  here  alone,  but  we  yet  are  a  pair — 

My  Fanny  I  see  in  my  cane-bottomed  chair. 

47 


A    DAY   WITH   THACKERAY 

She    comes    from    the  past — she  re-visits  my 
room — 

She  looks    as    she    did    then,   all  beauty   and 
bloom  ; — 

So  smiling  and  tender,  so  fresh  and   so  fair — 

And  yonder    she    sits    in    my    cane-bottomed 
chair." 


Printed  by  The  Bushey  Colour  Press  {Andre  &  Sleigh,  Ltd.), 

Bushey,  Herts.,  England. 


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